Systeme.io
Suite for online entrepreneurs: sales funnels, emailing, course hosting, payment and affiliate programme in a single subscription.
No single building block is hard on its own: a sales page, a sign-up, a Stripe payment, a protected course area, a referral cookie. A weekend is enough for a first working funnel. The invisible work is elsewhere: deliverability, handling bounces, compliant unsubscribing, VAT on international sales. And you lose the visual editor, which seems secondary until the day you need to change a headline at 11 p.m. without touching code. Worthwhile if you like building, dangerous if it is your only sales channel.
What you lose
- Visual page and email editors, and the template library.
- Managed deliverability: shared reputation, bounces, spam complaints.
- Full affiliate programme, with commission payouts and a space for your affiliates.
- Webinars, blog and extras included in the subscription.
- A single contact when payment fails on launch day.
The prompt to build it yourself
Build me a sales funnel and course platform for a single operator, to replace Systeme.io. Stack: Next.js (App Router), TypeScript, Tailwind, SQLite (better-sqlite3, SQL migrations in ./migrations), Stripe Checkout and webhooks, Resend for emails. No authentication provider: magic link by email for buyers, an administrator password in .env. To do: 1. Funnel pages in MDX in ./content/pages (slug, title, hook, button, optional priceId), rendered on the server. 2. Sign-up form to /api/optin. Contacts in SQLite (email, name, tags, source page, creation date, unsubscribe date). Optional double opt-in. 3. Email engine: broadcasts and sequences (JSON files in ./content/sequences: delay, subject, MDX body). A worker (node-cron, every minute) sends due steps and logs everything. Every email has a one-click unsubscribe link and List-Unsubscribe headers. 4. Payment: /api/checkout creates the Stripe session. The webhook grants access to the course on purchase and removes it on refund. 5. A /learn area: modules and lessons in MDX, protected by the purchased access, video by embed URL, progress tracking. 6. Affiliation: /r/CODE sets a 60-day cookie, the sale is attributed through the webhook, commissions are listed with a “pending” status. No payouts. 7. /admin administration: contacts with search, broadcast editor with test send, sales, commissions, CSV exports. Out of scope: drag-and-drop editors, webinars, blog, VAT management, affiliate payouts, external analytics. Secrets in .env. Demo data (two contacts, one course, one sequence). README with the Stripe CLI command to test webhooks and deployment on a VPS.
Frequently asked questions
- Can Systeme.io be replaced by a custom-built tool?
- casevibecode verdict: Partly replaceable. No single building block is hard on its own: a sales page, a sign-up, a Stripe payment, a protected course area, a referral cookie. A weekend is enough for a first working funnel. The invisible work is elsewhere: deliverability, handling bounces, compliant unsubscribing, VAT on international sales. And you lose the visual editor, which seems secondary until the day you need to change a headline at 11 p.m. without touching code. Worthwhile if you like building, dangerous if it is your only sales channel.
- What is Systeme.io used for?
- Suite for online entrepreneurs: sales funnels, emailing, course hosting, payment and affiliate programme in a single subscription.
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